Harry's Lot

About the Book

Harry Jobber has run smack into reality and he was ill prepared for the meeting. Harry has drifted in his comfort zone and been content there much too long. He has become more of a kid than his own two children. He has become a fanatic on religious devotion and wants something going on at his church for the children of the community. He can hardly wait until his oldest child graduates from college so he, Henry, can come home to run the family business. Harry envisions his life growing much easier whereby he can help the kids fly their kites, the very young sail their little boats on his pond and fill the church with the young teenagers. He has very little ambition for himself. But Harry has an ungrateful wife that wants to move up in society. She is a fanatic about attending various clubs in the community where she can rub shoulders with the elite. She expresses dissatisfaction with their comfortable old home and wants to go to the suburbs. Harry dreads hearing of such a thing and certainly attempts to discourage any move. He cannot win an argument with his dominating wife.

When the hard times come and they certainly do, Harry seems better equipped to face the future than his wife who has escaped poverty one time and wants nothing further to do with returning. Gertrude, the wife, is not happy with her lot and strains to make Harry into the man she thinks she wants. She wants affluence that she can touch. Harry just wants to live and let live in a world of his own. But the very hard time come.

There is some beautiful poetry sprinkled throughout the novel.

About the Author

I was born in Lawrence County Tennessee on September 15, 1934. I was the last of eight children and my early years were times of little money due to the “Great Depression.” Lack of finances may have crimped the niceties of life but there was generally plenty of food available from the farm. There were always some reading materials around my home. Literature seemed to provide a dreamy escape from the fields of agriculture. Cotton was raised for the money crop along with some peanuts and potatoes. We had hogs for family consumption and for selling cured meat in Lawrenceburg and around the communities. I will say that being the baby of the family I got the thickest gravy and all the hand me down male clothes I needed. I can only remember love in that big dark home in my early days. Electricity had not come our way at that time and we read by coal oil lamps. I attended Fall River elementary school near by. It was then that I rode the old school bus to high school. I finished high school at Lawrence County High School in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, Martin College at Pulaski, Tennessee and Middle Tennessee State at Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

I taught elementary school, spent time in military service and did some manufacturing work before settling down to my life’s occupation. The main work of my life was for the State of Tennessee with the Department of Public Welfare, later called Human Services. I retired from that job in January 1997 with a little less than forty years of accumulated service with the State.  But went back to work at the same work place on two occasions. My jobs over more than thirty-five years just about covered all the work areas of the Department with most of the years being the administrative head of the local office. I enjoyed this work greatly because I loved the people with which I worked and the cliental.

My early years were greatly influenced by the rural community in which I lived in those days of very little money. The church was also a main influence to me. I enjoyed sitting at the two grocery stores and hearing the local tales of the customers as they spun them on rainy days and in winter. In their lives I have found characters for my later writings. These memories continue strong in my head even today after all the years.

Various family members influenced my early life. There was no one more colorful than my grandmother. She was a strong minded person who spent a lot of time in brewing her own medicine of “Catnip Tea,” and many other types of home remedies. She was supposed to have a lot of Indian blood in her veins but to me she was just “Granny”. She loved to talk with almost anyone who would listen. She had enough energy left to jump the rope with the little girls at school at age seventy. She was an early inspiration for my writings because of her character.

I was widowed in the year 2002 when my wife of forty-six years passed away with cancer. I am still adjusting to her loss. We had lost a son earlier in our marriage. I have a daughter who lives near by and she has three children who call me “Daddy Tom.”

I love to write poetry as well as prose, to paint natural scenes in oils and compose songs on occasions. I spend a lot of my spare time doing volunteer work for the community.  I try to be active in my church. There I am the Lay Leader, teach a Sunday school class and lead the music. I love the things of nature around my home including birds and trees. Over the years I have become a student of the arts. I don’t believe I will ever outgrow those passions. They continue to furnish inspiration for poems and pleasant thoughts.

My serious writings started in 1983 due to the “empty nest syndrome.” The only daughter married and moved away. I found that I could put down my thoughts on scrap paper and composition books Writing has been very rewarding since that time and I have finally admitted to myself that I will never quit dabbling in the arts.

Recently, in July of 2005, I unfortunately had a heart attack. Because of this I will probably spend more time in reworking a lot of the old manuscripts for possible publications.